Fire at Mulholland Middle in Lake Balboa suspicious, school says

A fire early Friday destroyed most of a classroom building at Mulholland Middle School in Lake Balboa.

School officials said it appeared someone had broken into the building, but fire investigators said they had not determined whether the case involved arson.

After a fire alarm went off at 4:31 a.m., firefighters found much of a 30-foot-by-50-foot "bungalow" building at the school in flames, said Brian Humphrey, a Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman.

They extinguished the fire in about 20 minutes, and no one was hurt. The fire did not spread to the main school building.

Thomas Waldman, a Los Angeles Unified School District spokesman, said the two-classroom building was largely destroyed. It housed the school's police academy magnet, which prepares students for law enforcement careers.

Humphrey said the cause was still under investigation Friday afternoon, and firefighters left it to school officials to determine the cost of the damages.

Waldman said someone forced his way into a door of one classroom and set a fire there, then exited through a connecting door to another classroom.